Waltham City Council tables flooding fix measure

Tuesday

Feb 27, 2018 at 3:44 PMFeb 27, 2018 at 6:42 PM

Melissa Russell mrussell@wickedlocal.com @WalthamNewsTrib

Residents of Linden Street and Waverly Oaks Road have, over the years, experienced severe flooding that turned streets into lakes, inundated basements and in some cases, required rescue by emergency personnel. On Monday night, a motion calling for funds toward addressing the problem was tabled, with some City Council members asking why.

Councilors approved a resolution urging Mayor Jeanette McCarthy to engage an environmental consultant firm to conduct a complete environment assessment of the entire Fernald property, and provide a detailed cost estimate for full remediation.

Then, the Council was asked to approve a transfer of $55,000 from a Chapel Hill dam project to design and engineering services for wetland rehabilitation on the northwest portion of the property.

Debate over timing of design work

Councilor Robert Waddick expressed concern that the design work should wait until the full environmental assessment of the property was completed. Ward 1 Councilor Daniel Romard proposed an amendment stating any design work be delayed until after the environmental feasibility study of the entire property was completed.

Ward 3 Councilor George Darcy argued residents and businesses have been waiting decades for flood relief, and the council should not delay the design work while the study was being conducted.

“I appreciate the councilor's comments, but we have an opportunity to rectify the downstream flooding,” he said. “We did testing when were demolishing the cottages, there was asbestos and it was remediated from the site.”

“I don’t support the amendment,” he said. “Residents have waited long enough. It is what the people of Waltham want.”

Darcy explained after the meeting that the site was originally home to farm fields and ponds and streams. In the 1970s, the state ordered the Fernald create more humane housing for the people who lived there, and built cottages in the area where the pond was. The pond and wetlands were filled in, and culverts were dug for the runoff.

“That’s why the streets flood every year,” he said. “Restoration is very important from a flood mitigation perspective. We’ve been waiting decades for this to happen.”

Originally purchased to deal with flooding

The original goal of the CPA application used to purchase the Fernald was to replicate the wetlands onsite to reduce flooding, in the Waverley Oaks Road, Linden Street and Beaverbrook areas of the city, Darcy said. The Council should take the opportunity to address downstream flooding by capturing millions of gallons of water in a rehabilitated pond that had existed until it was filled in by the state in the 1970s, he said.

Darcy proposed tabling the motion rather than allowing it to pass in the amended form.

Councilor Tom Stanley, a member of the ad hoc Fernald Use Committee, supported tabling the motion. He said he was alarmed by the responses from an environmental specialist to a long list of questions submitted by the committee.

“I would like to know, do we continue to do things piecemeal or the right way from the start? This could potentially alter the flow of water on the property, are there any guarantees it is not going to interact with contaminated areas and cause more problems? Shouldn’t we find contaminated areas before altering the landscape?”

The council approved tabling the motion.

“Now it is sitting on the council floor,” Darcy said. “This was for design and engineering work, not altering anything on the site. This is a significant setback.”